1928-
The song “ Old Man River “sung by Pail Robeson came out as a single.

1929-
Steamboat Willie was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, but Mickey didn’t speak
much. He just whistled, yelped and laughed. In the cartoon released this day
“the Carnival Kid” Mickey spoke his first words “ Hot Dogs!” The voice was
musician Carl Stalling.

1958 -
Dick Dale invents "surf music" with "Let's Go Trippin".

1969-John Lennon and Yoko Ono record "Give Peace a
Chance." It became the theme song of the Anti-Vietnam War movement.
Because of this song and Lennon’s support of the Hippie protesters the Nixon
White House kept a file on him. Lennon spent most of 1972-73 under a constant
threat of 60-day deportation from the US.

1984-
Martial arts movie star Steven Segal married soap opera star Adrienne LaRussa.
But what Adrienne didn’t know was he already had a wife named Miyako Fujetani
and two kids waiting for him in Japan. A few months after this he fell for
another actress named Kelly LeBrock.

1985-
John Sculley was a former exec from Pepsi brought in by Apple Computer founders
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to help run the company. This day his solution to
help the company run better was to fire Steve Jobs. Wozniak retired and Sculley
eventually moved on. Before his death, Steve Jobs came back to Apple and make
it the worlds most profitable company, as well as run PIXAR and be on the board
of the Walt Disney Company.

1989-
"Skinhead Day at the Magic Kingdom" Disneyland refused to admit a
rally of skinheads, Nazis and Klansmen.

1990-
Television sitcom Seinfeld premiered based on a TV special about the standup
comedian called the Seinfeld Chronicles. No Soup for You!

1995- A
young Mexican-American Tejana singer named Selena was gaining a growing
crossover appeal in pop music and there seemed no limit. This day her career
was cut short when she was shot and killed by the Yolanda Saldivia, the
president of the Selena Fan club.

2000-
The first Survivor show premiered, shepherding in a new era in America of
TV Reality shows.

1919- Hollywood
entrepreneur Charles Tolman bought a natural declivity north of Hollywood Blvd
called Daisy Dell. People had been picnicking in the grass there for years. Now
Tolman wanted to build a concert amphitheatre. Conductor Hugo Kirchhofer
remarked “ It looks like a big bowl!” So it became the Hollywood Bowl
thereafter.

1930- The Lockheed Terminal
rededicated as Burbank Airport.

1955- The
New York chapter of the Catholic League of Decency pressured Loews Theater on
Broadway to take down a giant 30-foot billboard of Marilyn Monroe trying to
push her skirt down.

1962- Benjamin
Britten’s War Requiem had its first
performance.

1972- Director
choreographer Bob Fosse filmed a live performance of Liza Minelli’s one-woman
show Liza with a Z. It was telecast
in Sept. and became a sensation.

1994 - Death of Baron Marcel Bich, Italian-born French
engineer and industrialist who created an empire through his disposable BIC
pens, lighters and razors.

1941-THE WALT DISNEY CARTOONISTS STRIKE.. The picket
line and campsite went up across the street where St. Joseph's Hospital is
today. Chef's from nearby Toluca Lake restaurants would cook for the strikers
on their off time and the aircraft mechanics of Lockheed promised muscle if any
ruff stuff was threatened.

Picketers included Hank Ketcham (Dennis the Menace), Walt
Kelly and Margaret Selby (later Kelly) (Pogo), Bill Melendez (A Charlie Brown
Christmas), Steve Bosustow and John Hubley (Mr. Magoo), Maurice Noble and Chuck
Jones (What's Opera Doc?), George Baker (Sad Sack), Dick Swift ("the
Parent Trap") Frank Tashlin (Cinderfella) and four hundred others.
Animators from Warner Bros. MGM and Walter Lantz marched with their Disney
brothers and sisters, because they knew this was where the fate of their entire
industry would be settled. Celebrities like Dorothy Parker and John Garfield
gave speeches. The studio claimed no one of importance was on strike.

The strike was eventually settled by Federal arbitration and
a little arm twisting by the Bank of America. Many of the artists who left the
studio afterwards set up U.P.A. and pioneered the modern 1950's style.

1942- JOHN BARRYMORE- The great dramatic actor, the first
American to dare to play Hamlet in England, died of his many vices at age 60.
Whether the infamous prank actually happened where Raoul Walsh, Bertholdt
Brecht, Peter Lorre, W.C. Fields and some others (the "Bundy Drive
Boys") kidnapped Barrymore's body from Pierce Brothers Funeral Home and
propped it up at the poker table to scare the willys out of Errol Flynn is a
matter of debate. Flynn and Paul Heinried said it was true, writer Gene Fowler
said it was false.

1942- Bing Crosby recorded
"White Christmas," debatably the greatest selling record of all time.

1954- New York Police raid the studio of Irving Klaw, the
photographer of the Betty Page kinky pin-up photos. Klaw tried to appeal to the
Supreme Court but couldn’t get a hearing.

1956- Hollywood director James Whale (Frankenstein, The
Invisible Man) drowned himself in his pool. His career was over and his health
was deteriorating from a series of strokes. Bruises were found on his head and
at first the police suspected foul play. It wasn’t until 1989 his gay lover
made his suicide note public. His head had struck the pool’s bottom as he
jumped in causing the bruise.

1978 - Bob Crane, (Hogan-Hogan's
Heroes), died at 49 under mysterious circumstances. He was found in a Tucson
hotel room surrounded by pornography, bludgeoned to death by a camera
tripod.The murder was never solved.

1999- Hikers in Malibu California
discover the remains of Phillip Taylor, the bass guitar player of the 60’s band
Iron Butterfly. The musician had disappeared four years before. Now his
skeleton was found sitting in his Ford Aerostar at the bottom of a steep
ravine.

1941- THE WALT DISNEY STRIKE-
Labor pressures had been building in the Magic Kingdom since promises made to
artists over the success of Snow White were reneged on, and Walt Disney’s
lawyer Gunther Lessing encouraged a hard line with his employees. On this day,
in defiance of federal law, Walt Disney fired animator Art Babbitt, the creator
of Goofy, and thirteen other cartoonists for demanding a union. Babbitt had
emerged as the union movements’ leader.Studio security officers escorted him off the lot.

That night in an emergency meeting
of the Cartoonists Guild, Art’s assistant on Fantasia, Bill Hurtz, made the
motion to strike, and it was unanimously accepted. Bill Hurtz will later go on
to direct award winning cartoons like UPA’s "Unicorn in the Garden".
Picket lines go up next day in cartoon animation’s own version of the Civil War.

Walt Disney nearly had a nervous breakdown over the strike and a federal
mediator was sent by Washington to arbitrate. In later years, Uncle Walt blamed
the studio’s labor ills on Communists. The studio unionized completely, but the
hard feelings remained for their rest of their lives.

1954- Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder in 3D premiered.

1960- George Zucco 74, a character
actor who specialized in horror movies like Blood from the Mummies Hand, died.
One version says he died of fright in a mental hospital in San Gabriel
California. He was convinced that H.P. Lovecraft's Great God Cthulu was after
him. He actually died of natural causes in a nursing home.

1966- the It’s a Small World
exhibit, which had been created for the 1964 NY Worlds Fair, reopened at
Disneyland, California.

1977- George Lucas film Star Wars opened in general release
across the country.

1983- “What a Feeling” the theme from the film Flashdance by Irene Cara reaches the top of the pop charts.
Everyone dancing with leggings and baggy sweaters.

1998- Saturday Night Live comedian
Phil Hartman was shot to death by his wife Brynne as he slept. She was a heavy
drinker and pill user. At 6:00am as the LAPD were knocking Brynne turned the
gun on herself.

2005-
Actress Lindsay Lohan was photographed passed out in her car shortly after a
court hearing for a previous DUI.

1930- HAPPY BIRTHDAY SCOTCH TAPE -Chemist Richard Drew of Saint Paul Minnesota invented cellophane tape, marketed by the 3M Company under the brand Scotch. It was called Scotch after the stereotype perception that Scots people are frugal with money, so it’s a good value. Three years later Drew invented Masking Tape as a way for car manufacturers to paint cars two tone.

1933- Disney’s cartoon “The Three Little Pigs” premiered, whose song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” became a national anthem of recovery from the Depression.

Director of the short Burt Gillette left Disney afterwards to run the Van Beuren Studio in New York.

1995- Actor Christopher Reeve was left paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in an equestrian event in Charlottesville, Va. He became a spokesman for stem-cel research, but his effort in the US was frustrated by powerful religious lobbyists. Christopher Reeves died in 2004.

1957- Sid Caesar's Your
Show of Show's canceled after nearly a decade. The show used future star
writers like Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Woody Allen and Neil Simon.They pioneered the executive strategy of
network programmer Pat Weaver to not let the show be owned by an entire sponsor,
but the network would produce the show and would sell the sponsor commercial
time in 30 second chunks. Pat Weaver’s daughter is Sigorney Weaver. Your Show of Shows was finally bested in
the ratings by The Lawrence Welk Show.

1968- The Rolling Stones release the song Jumping Jack Flash.

1969- John Schlesinger’s film Midnight Cowboy premiered. The first X-rated film to ever win the
Oscar for Best Film.

1977- The Hollywood premiere of George Lucas’ movie Star Wars. The movie opened on the 28th.

1979- Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic Alien opened. It featured the exotic designs of Hungarian artist
Giger, and John Hurt with a classic case of chest pains!

1980- Evangelist Oral Roberts claimed he saw a 900-foot
Jesus over his bed.

1983- Return of the
Jedi opened. It was originally Revenge of the Jedi, but George Lucas
changed the name just a month before.

1994- First International Conference on the World Wide Web. Tim
Berners-Lee and CERN talked on how to implement and unify the new World Wide Web.

1866 - Berkeley, California
founded, named for George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne.

1929- The Marx Brothers first movie comedy” The Coconuts”
premiered.

1950- Married movie star Ingrid Bergman shocked American
morality by having an open love affair with neorealist film director Roberto
Rosselini. This day they were finally married but the outcry of conservatives
about this “Apostle of Degradation” was such that her image needed a makeover.
So she played Saint Joan of Arc.

Star Bruce Willis,
whose own salary was $17 million, blamed the film’s costs on union filmworkers’
salaries. He would return to his car after a day’s shooting to find it covered
with animal excrement. The film almost sank his career. Willis’ next two films,
"Death Becomes Her" and 'Pulp Fiction", he did for scale. In
2000 he gave a $100,000 dollar donation to the SAG/AFTRA strike fund.